‘Data centres strategic in boosting digital economy’

WITH Nigeria home to three Data Centres and more in the pipeline, the Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson said such infrastructure, apart from adding to Information and Communications Technology growth, would fuel Nigeria’s planned digital economy and improve Internet traffic in the country.

Speaking in Lagos at the commissioning of MainOne’s data cenetre named MDXi, Johnson said the centre has one of the highest standards in data centre certifications globally, and the largest in West Africa.

Built within a record period of 18 months, the data centre has a full capacity of 600 racks, and was said to have gulped N7 billion.

Johnson, who said three data centre is still very small for a big economy like Nigeria, noted that the most important thing is to create contents; applications and policies that will run on the infrastructure.

According to her, the challenge is to ensure that these facilities are utilized adequately to capacity, stressing that the ministry will ensure proper policies and regulations that will not only guarantee the safety of the infrastructure, but also ensure contents are created to drive usage.

“The centre represents the highest level of security and confidence in the ICT private sector and it is expected to boost local content and create industry local participation in the ICT industry. I congratulate MainOne for the building of the world-class Tier 111 Data Centre. I have gone round it and I am quite impressed with what I saw. It is a step to building a digital economy for the country.

“Before now, data information sent within Nigeria, will first go outside the shores of the country to locate the data hub that is hosted outside the country, before delivering the message to its final destination within Nigeria, but with the MainOne Tier 111 Data Centre, it means we will now have the opportunity to house so many data in the country, instead of allowing local data to first hit hubs hosted outside the country, before re-rooting the same information to Nigeria.”It also means we are building infrastructure that is required by ICT players in Nigeria. The beauty of these is that more jobs and wealth will be created”, she stated.